August 2016

Feb 06, 2013

The killing of Mr. Jaber, just the kind of leader most crucial to American efforts to eradicate Al Qaeda, was a reminder of the inherent hazards of the quasi-secret campaign of targeted killings that the United States is waging against suspected militants not just in Yemen but also in Pakistan and Somalia.

Your liberal media, actually sounding kind of liberal for once, complete with shout-out to the ACLU: "This dispute goes to the fundamental nature of our democracy, to the relationship among the branches of government and to their responsibility to the public."

I'm surprised and disappointed by the lack of outrage from the left (and the right) on so much that is going on.

The TSA is expanding. It should be scaled down. reinforced cockpit doors and the knowledge that a hijacking will likely result in passenger deaths are game changers. The TSA is intrusive, costly, and i think the protection they provide is questionable.

the sanctioned assassination of american citizens without a court hearing is scary. try them in absentia for treason. if a court convicts them, then by all means, execute them.

the US has been in a state of emergency of varying degrees since 1995. Obama has extended the current one every year he's been in office.

police have tried to use thermal imaging to detect drugs in a house without a warrant and they want to be able to bring a drug dog to your door.

these things are all done for our protection. i'd prefer a little more liberty.

Where are the outraged commenters who wanted Alberto Gonzalez charged with war crimes and George W. Bush impeached?

Where are those same people who screamed that Bush was violating the Constitution and complaining about unlawful detentions, lack of due process, and the outrageous wiretapping of U.S. CITIZENS!?

I am often accused of viewing things through a partisan lens, but instances of utter hypocrisy such as this reveal who truly views things through a partisan lens.

Bush was excoriated for detaining suspected terrorists without a trial, Obama just kills them. Bush was excoriated for eavesdropping on American citizens, Obama says it's okay to kill them.

People spent years on this blog and elsewhere trashing Bush and on the verge of heart attacks because of their outrage, and I spent years questioning their sincerity and assigning much of this behavior as "phony outrage" driven by Bush Derangement Syndrome.

It's time that a lot of you admit that I was right. You won't, but if you were being honest you would.

Ah, one of the most vocal critics of Bush trampling rights, violating due process, breaking the law, war crimes, etc. finally speaks up and proclaims...... what about the City of Greensboro?

Just remember all of the crap you people talked about Bush and all of the crap you gave me for claiming that it was phony outrage driven by ideological and partisan hatred of Bush. This kind of proves it, doesn't it? It's obviously not the policy as was claimed at the time.

The options are to apologize and admit defeat at long, long, last or double down by injecting "false equivalence" into the debate. E.g., "how can you compare Bush claiming a right to detain American citizens or eavesdrop on them with Obama claiming a right to killing them?"

"I think Sam's questions are excellent ones that reflect the very real and agonizing decisions any president must make regarding war. Anyone care to try and answer them? Or is it just pile-on and marginalize time again?

"What is the strategy, to kill ALL members of Al Qaeda based on what they MIGHT do?"

"If Al Qaeda is Iran, will we go to war with Iran too?"

"What about Saudi Arabia?"

"Is it the position of Ed Cone, Roch and Obama that the United States should dictate whether the Taliban has the right to exist in another country?"

After three months of observation I've concluded that you guys are all pretty good at making Sam sound paranoid, obsessed, whiny, radical, pathetic, etc. Not so good at refuting the substance of his points, especially the ones that apply to yourselves as well as to the usual suspect.

I don't think Sam is seeking unanimity on his worldview, just the rationale for opposing ones, and at the risk of getting laughed out of this blog, is more willing than most of you to apply the same standards to his as to others'.

What Sam is most guilty of is having an extroardinarily sensitive bullshitometer yet he lacks the ability to turn it off or hold his nose.

What some of you find threatening is that he is daring to ask you to define your standards of success or failure of this mission BEFORE it begins so you can't so easily morph it into anything that suits your purposes later. I guess he wasn't smart enough to do that before the last war and it's sad that he should feel the need to now.
Posted by: cheripickr | Mar 28, 2009 at 06:20 PM"

I wonder what it must be like to see your nose rubbed in your hypocrisy by your own words, predicted flawlessly, fulfilled faithfully, and chronicled meticulously, all in the same forum. Bastardi never forecasted better.

Six years ago, this thread would have over 70 comments expressing outrage in one form or another and blasting anyone who dared raised the spectrum of Bush Derangement Syndrome. The level of passion and self-righteousness on this topic exceeded all others.

But now... a paltry 9 comments mostly asking where the hell everyone went.

FWP+, you were no less prescient than I and caught on very quickly.

Time to go home? Perhaps so. Let the fools declare victory. Search "phony outrage", "intellectual honesty", "hypocrisy", and the charge that I was the one viewing everything through a "partisan lens" on this site, and the record taken as a whole tells the real story regardless of how much backslapping occurs in the echo chamber.

Maybe Ed's readership is down. Or maybe the preponderance of Ed's readership agrees with the drone policy.

While you and CP are outraged at the lack of some satisfying quantity of outraged comments expressed here, I'm outraged at the actual policy.

I'm guessing that the partisan silence on this is similar in quantity and decibels as the partisan silence from Bush supporters when he did stupid and dangerous stuff. I don't recall you expressing much outrage at Bush's stupid and dangerous stuff... you're just bent on slamming people for slamming your guy and predicting hypocrisy.

You miss the real cause of who gets outraged over what in partisan politics, I think. It is pretty simple to understand, though. You and CP call it hypocrisy, more aptly I believe it is attributable to human nature. 'My guy is good, your guy is bad" kind of stuff.

I don't know if drone strikes are right, an appropriate combat tool, or wrong, extra judicial action, but I think it has a lot to do with where they are used.

I'm inclined to believe drones are just another tool of war in which friendly fire ... happens.

What is a tool of war as opposed to a police tool of law? Firearms, grenades, tomahawks, helicopters, drones. Police tools of law are surly more discriminating than tools of war. I don't know where the drones fall in that respect, although they do not seem to be much more discriminate than a tomahawk.

One thing can not be argued against is that avoiding the police use of drones would vastly limit the potential for the extra judicial use of drones.

David, have I expressed outrage at Obama's policy or is my ire directed towards those whose previous position on similar matters during the Bush years seems to require outrage on their part?

If I excused Bush but not Obama, then I would be a hypocrite. However, I haven't stated my position on Obama's policy yet. I think you would agree that KILLING is different that wiretaps or waterboarding. That said, the Obama policy may be justified in the same way that I believed a lot of Bush's policies were.

What isn't justified is the hypocrisy by people who KNOW DAMN WELL that if the Obama policy was the Bush policy, they would be SCREAMING and marching in the streets and accusing me and anyone else who supported such a policy of being against the Constitution, civil liberties, etc. Worse, it wouldn't just be a few people, it would be a whole litany of folks jumping on to the pile.

FWP+ (a.k.a. CP, a.k.a. John Hayes) nailed it. The record speaks for itself. Most of you have my email if you want to come clean and apologize. Make sure you email Bubba, too.

David, you are virtually the ONLY commenter I have seen here in 4 years, myself included, start off espousing or leaning toward one view or position, then plainly and uniquivocally adjust it to fit forthcoming facts or convincing arguments presented here, at least on any issue that plays out on the liberal-conservative spectrum. No reason that should be a rare trait but apparently it is. The OWS pepper spray incident comes immediately to mind. Everyone else was too proud, pious, invested or incapable of yielding their ideology to the facts to do so. I told you then and I'm telling you now I really admire that. (Yeah I know, get a room). But the folks here who deny their liberal ideology in favor of "pragmatism", "independence", "objective reality", etc are so full of shit it's not funny, as Sam points out. At leasts the conservatives do not deny their own biases, and some actually LIKE to have them challenged.

But as Sam has said many times, and I learned rather quickly, you can't have an honest conversation with people who hold different people to different standards of policy, judgement, critique, or what have you for the same actions, as well as those who try to answer opposition with agenda, strategy and evasion rather than reason or pursuasion. Ultimately there is no getting around it. I burnt out on the actual issues a long time ago because of the futility of this and that no minds are ever changed anyway. So what is left? After awhile I became a student of the MANNER in which people discuss things, rather than just opposing them for having beliefs different than mine. Ed calls this "stirring shit" while I like to look at it as flushing it out. .I have thus come to admire some people with polar opposite views not only from each other but sometimes from me. JustCorbly, Polifrog, yourself, Steve Harrison make good examples. I've also encountered boorishness, arrogance, self-aggrandisement, evasion, slipperiness and of course, hypocrisy that I had never encountered in any previous form of communication. It became like a big sociology experiment for awhile, and fun at times, but I think I have milked the last usefulness out of it. I really am going home now. It's been quite an education.

FWP+, once that realization sinks in, you have to view it as entertainment. Part of the entertainment is people taking themselves way too seriously when a review of the record shows that it is entirely unwarranted.

The OWS pepper spray incident comes immediately to mind. Everyone else was too proud, pious, invested or incapable of yielding their ideology to the facts to do so. I told you then and I'm telling you now I really admire that.